High court protects cellphone privacy

Thursday

Jun 26, 2014 at 12:01 AMJun 26, 2014 at 10:39 AM

WASHINGTON - In a strong defense of digital-age privacy, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled yesterday that police may not generally search the cellphones of people they arrest without first getting search warrants.

WASHINGTON — In a strong defense of digital-age privacy, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled yesterday that police may not generally search the cellphones of people they arrest without first getting search warrants.

Cellphones are powerful devices unlike anything else police may find on someone they arrest, Chief Justice John Roberts said for the court. Because the phones contain so much information, police must get a warrant before looking through them, he said.

“Modern cellphones are not just another technological convenience. With all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans the privacies of life,” Roberts said.

The message to police about what they should do before rummaging through a cellphone’s contents after an arrest is simple. “Get a warrant,” Roberts said.

The court chose not to extend earlier rulings that allow police to empty a suspect’s pockets and examine whatever they find to ensure officers’ safety and prevent the destruction of evidence.

The Obama administration and the state of California, defending the cellphone searches, said cellphones should have no greater protection from a search than anything else police find.

But the defendants in the two cases, backed by civil libertarians, librarians and news-media groups, argued that cellphones, especially smartphones, are increasingly powerful computers that can store troves of sensitive personal information.

Roberts said the comparison to packages of cigarettes and other items that were at issue in earlier cases is not apt. A ride on horseback and a flight to the moon both “are ways of getting from point A to point B, but little else justifies lumping them together,” he said.

The first case, Riley v. California, arose from the arrest of David L. Riley, who was pulled over in San Diego in 2009 for having an expired auto registration. Police found loaded guns in his car and, on inspecting Riley’s smartphone, entries they associated with a street gang.

A more comprehensive search of the phone led to information that linked Riley to a shooting. He was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. A California appeals court said neither search had required a warrant.

The second case, United States v. Wurie, involved a search of the call log of the flip phone of Brima Wurie, who was arrested in 2007 in Boston and charged with gun and drug crimes. The federal appeals court in Boston last year threw out the evidence found on Wurie’s phone.

In Columbus, the Police Division has instructed its officers since 2010 that they cannot look at the cellphone of someone pulled over for routine traffic violations, such as texting while driving, unless they obtain that person’s permission or a search warrant.

The Supreme Court said that authorities concerned about the destruction of evidence can take steps to prevent the remote erasure of a phone’s contents or the activation of encryption. One exception to the warrant requirement left open by the decision is a case in which officers reasonably fear for their safety or the lives of others.

Justice Samuel Alito joined in the judgment but wrote separately to say he would prefer elected lawmakers, not judges, decide matters of privacy protection in the 21st century. Elected officials “ are in a better position than we are to assess and respond to the changes that have already occurred and those that almost certainly will take place in the future,” Alito said.

Information from The New York Times was included in this story.

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